Artists featured at theBench
February 2012: Erika Maurer & Florian Maurer
I don’t want to learn - I want to know. I want to know lots more than I do know. I want to be free. Yet images sneak into my work, grab my legs like a ball and chain, and lead me down a rotten path. Then I get angry, yell at others and blame them for it. Then I start again and make myself stop before I think the work is done. Then it’s done. With painting it is like with life: when you can fit everything in a daypack, you’re ready to go. I’m not there yet. But I’m working on it. Abstract painting makes me face impatience and obsession with order. I need to need less, and painting gets me there.

Get dressed! Go to school! Do your homework! Don't speak with your mouth full! - Once I am grown up, I thought, I won't have any of this anymore. But I was wrong: I turned 60 and it sank in that I better get serious about my childhood promise. That's how I would like to paint: not to get dressed, stay away from school, don't do my homework, and speak with a schnitzel hanging from my mouth. It's hard work, but it's worth the effort. It's like the first gulp of beer on a hot day. I am an architect. My clients expect my buildings to work. My paintings don't have to meet such strict standards. I like that!

theBench Market  ·  250-492-2222  ·  368 Vancouver Avenue, Penticton, BC